Opinion: Space is the frontier of our ultimate dreams

Concordia University engineering student Nicholas Sweet who was part of a Concordia team that designed a satellite.

Concordia University engineering student Gregory Gibson who was part of a Concordia team that designed a satellite.

This image provided by NASA is one of a series of still photos documenting the process to release the SpaceX Dragon-2 spacecraft from the International Space Station on Tuesday March 26, 2013. The spacecraft, filled with experiments and old supplies, can be seen in the grasp of the Space Station Remote Manipulator System’s robot arm or CanadArm2 after it was undocked from the orbital outpost. The Dragon was scheduled to make a landing in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of California, later in the day. The moon can be seen at centre.
/ AP/NASA

MONTREAL - In the next few months, a new five-dollar bill will work its way into our wallets. It highlights Canada’s space accomplishments, such as Dextre, the Canadarm’s hand. Notable as well is the new bill unveiled by Canada’s newly-minted orbital rock star: Chris Hadfield, commander of the international space station.

Not only does the bill showcase our extra-planetary exploits, but it is also a good reminder of the fundamental value of space. Last year alone, the Canadian space sector generated $3.4 billion in revenues.

Canada was the third country in the world with an Earth-orbiting satellite — the 50-year-old Alouette-1. This country has a long history of space exploration and we are now regarded as a country to turn to for robotics. It’s time to celebrate our space history.

Friday, May 3, is International Space Day. A group of Concordia University engineering students, known as Space Concordia, is marking the occasion by visiting the recently opened new Montreal Planetarium with former Canadian astronaut Marc Garneau. A very realistic re-creation of the night sky, titled the Milky Way Theatre, is one of the many new exhibits we have been eager to explore.

Space is a constant source of wonder and inspiration. All the more so for us, as students. Space technology is cutting-edge, but we’re getting an opportunity to work on projects that actually get sent into Earth’s orbit. It’s hard to believe, but a satellite that our engineering team designed will be up there very soon.

And with companies like Virgin Galactic and SpaceX pushing hard for private space flight, ordinary people who love space are moving ever closer to their childhood dreams of becoming astronauts themselves.

That said, human space flight has been taking an odd path. Nearly four decades have passed since humans last set foot on the moon. We’ve been busy, instead, building football field-sized orbital research platforms and sending robots to other planets. But the itch for humans to return to deep space is palpable. Just last week, 20,000 applicants signed up for Mars One, a private space flight project led by Dutch entrepreneur Bas Lansdorp to establish a permanent human colony on Mars.

The pace of technological change in recent decades has been breathtaking. It’s impossible to look back over the last generation without noticing how drastically our lives have changed because of the Internet. There was a time when the Internet belonged only to governments and universities; today, though, it is ubiquitous, and it has turned our culture upside down.

As with the early days of the Internet, governments until now have held the key to space entry. However, we may be on the cusp of a new era, as many signs now point to the democratization of space: privately-owned companies sending their own rockets into orbit; students building their own satellites.

The Internet, which was once new and mysterious, has become part of our daily lives. As exciting and unfathomable as the universe is, we hope the same thing happens with space exploration.

It is entirely possible that one day, flying by Europa, one of the moon’s of Jupiter, will be as humdrum as flying now to Europe.

That day, of course, is a long way off. But until we have a Starbucks (or, with a nod to Canada, a Tim Hortons) on every moon, it will help to have International Space Day, and extraterrestrial banknotes, to remind ourselves of the starry future that surely lies ahead.

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